A World in Flames
by Ivypool2005
Summary: A REEEALLY SHORT one-shot about Cinder and Kai's kids. Warning - don't read if you get depressed easily. Other warning - it's not that good, just saying.
PART I

"Come on, come on, come _on_!"

Jade tugged on her twin brother's arm, unsuccessfully. At only five years old, Sage Dmitri was 3'8" and about as unmovable as a rock.

"What are you doing, anyway?" she asked, peeking over Sage's shoulder.

He swatted her away. "Reading."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "You know you don't have to learn to read until next year, right?"

"I know."

"Then why won't you PLAAAY?"

"Go play with Dad."

"Well, I'll have you know that Daddy's off running a country. And Mommy's on the moon," she said indignantly, putting her fists on her hips. She was just so _lonely_ , what with her parents off on business trips all the time. She plopped down on the bed with a sigh of frustration.

"Okay."

"What?"

"Okay," Sage repeated. He looked confused.

"Are you sure?"

He started shaking his head, as if trying to clear something out. "Yes. I don't know. I think so." Jade raised one eyebrow, something she had always been able to do. Sage stopped shaking his head and instead narrowed his eyes. "You look different. Better."

"Thanks?"

"No. You look… unnatural. It's weird."

"What are you saying about me, Sage Dmitri?"

"I'm not joking! Look," he said, holding up a mirror. She couldn't see anything different, but maybe it was just her.

Sage opened his mouth to say something, but just then, they heard the rumble of a hover landing in the front yard. They pressed their ears to the door. An android opened the door. They barely heard, "Welcome back, Linh-jie" before bolting towards the foyer.

Jade threw herself into her mother's arms. Familiar hands squeezed her back; one warm, one cold. But that was how it had always been, and she liked it.

Sage walked into the foyer a few moments later, still with a perplexed expression on his face. Seeing Jade, if anything, made it worse.

"What's wrong?" asked Cinder, bouncing Jade up and down on her arm.

"Nothing."

"You're lying." Sage rolled his eyes. "Come on. What's going on?"

He hesitated, then blurted, "Jade has the Lunar gift."

WHAT?

"WHAT?" she and her mother nearly shouted at the same time, startling a few nearby guards.

"Both of you, go to your room."

"What?" Sage whined. "But -"

" _Now._ "

PART II

Cinder sprawled on the bed. She tore her boot off her foot.

 _No._

Iko bounced into the room, wearing a flouncy yellow dress that was just way, way, _way_ too bright. "Cinder, Cinder! Winter gave me this dress and it's absolutely _fabulous_ , don't you think?" Cinder rolled over with a groan. Iko's voice rambled on, but she could barely hear her over the voice in her head.

 _No._

She had known that it might happen. She had known, and yet she'd done nothing. She could have taught them, protected them. Had Linh Garan's device installed in them. Whatever it was, it would have been better than - than this. She had no one to blame but herself.

 _No._

She threw her boot at the wall. It fell harmlessly to the floor.

 _No._

PART III - 5 years later

Sage and Jade sat together on the couch, watching an adventure movie on a screen.

"When I grow up, I want to be an explorer," Jade said, eyes wide.

"Not me. I'm going to be an alchemist."

Jade wrinkled her nose, a gesture that had become so familiar over the years. "That sounds boring."

"Trust me, it's not! Look at this." Sage opened a thick book, the same one he'd been carrying around for the past week. He stopped on a page covered in numbers and letters and diagrams that probably looked horribly complicated to Jade, but he had memorized them all. He knew he could make this work.

"Look. This is Lunar DNA," he told her, pointing at a line. "This is Earthen DNA. And this -" he pointed at another line - "Is shell DNA. A mutation of Lunars. What I've found -" he pulled a highlighter out of who knows where and highlighted a messy inscription in the margins - "is this."

"What is it?" He let out an incredulous laugh. "What is it? This, baby sister, is the strand of DNA that changes from a Lunar to a shell. The secret to the Lunar gift."

"This is very cool and all, but what does that hav eto do with being an alchemist?"

He took a deep breath. "What if I told you that I'd found a way for Earthens to get the Lunar gift?"

"No!"

"What?" He took a step back, shocked. "But look how many people it'll help! If everyone gets it, and is properly trained, everyone can be equal! We won't have to live anymore in fear of being controlled by Lunars!"

Jade's face suddenly grew hard and cold. "Lunars like me?"

Sage, realizing he'd gone too far, blurted out, "I didn't mean you. I -"

"I know exactly what you meant, Sage! You're just jealous because you're not special!" She cringed at her harsh words, but for her mouth, there was no turning back. "You will never be special, Sage Dmitri. Never."

She fled before he could see the tears forming in her eyes.

PART IV

Three days later, a fire was started in the Imperial Palace.

They had been together when the wall of flame jumped up around them. They could not hear anything, see anything. All they had left was each other.

So they clung to each other. They held each other, while the heat ate away at their hearts. And Sage put his mouth against Jade's ear and said, "I'm sorry." But he did not think she could hear him over the laughing fire and the smoke and the smell of burning flesh.

And Jade put her mouth against his ear and said, "I'm sorry." But she was sure he could not hear her over the screams in the hall. So while the heat ate away at her life, she held on, and she took away his pain. She fed him memories, memories of when they were children, carefree and happy. When she ran out of those, she let the feeling embrace them until they were both crying.

Even as the hot tears rolled down her cheeks, she still held on.

Even when she ran out of tears and was left with just her heaving breaths against Sage's chest, she still held on.

Even when her heart splintered into a thousand whirling worlds of flame -

She still held on.

PART V

"So basically, roads go from one point to another. And what I've discovered is that people like them and they want to see more of them." Kai groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Samhain Bristol's monotone voice droned on and on and on and on… you get the point. Kai felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Konn Torin.

"Perhaps this is not a convenient time for our young Emperor Kaito," Bristol-daren said, glaring accusingly at him. Suddenly, there came a _ping_ from his portscreen. It was a comm from Cinder.

"Perhaps it is not," he replied cooly, opening the comm. However, when he read it, his nonchalant facade shattered.

FIRE. COME QUICKLY.

"I gotta go," he said, tripping over his words.

"I don't think you fully appreciate these meetings, Emperor Kaito. This is for the good of our world, and if you don't -"

Kai cut him off. "No, you don't understand. I - something -" He bolted out of the room.

He could see the smoke from a mile away. It was vicious, thick and black, and somehow Kai knew that it was too late.

When he finally got there, Cinder was already kneeling in front of the ashes that had once been Jade's bedroom. Kai joined her on the ground, his white button-down shirt wrinkled and unbuttoned. His jacket had fallen off somewhere in between, but he wasn't about to go to try and find it.

He leaned against Cinder, and she held him and let him rest his head on her shoulder. She was the strong one. She was always the strong one. Even today, while the walls were caked in ashes and smoke-smelling misery hung in the air, she sat still, staring into the ruins like she was challenging the fire. Not sad. Angry. Kai could not imagine the bravery it took to do that, to cling on to that strand of hope.

He was not strong. He was broken.

He laid his head down in her lap and cried.


End file.
